Two Christmas Celebrations eBook

THE TWO CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS,

A.D. I. and MDCCCLV.

A Christmas Story for MDCCCLVI.

By Theodore Parker,

Minister of the 28th Congregational Society of Boston.

Two Christmas Celebrations.

A great many years ago, Augustus Caesar, then Emperor
of Rome, ordered his mighty realm to be taxed; and
so, in Judea, it is said, men went to the towns where
their families belonged, to be registered for assessment.
From Nazareth, a little town in the north of Judea,
to Bethlehem, another little but more famous town
in the south, there went one Joseph, the carpenter,
and his wife Mary,—­obscure and poor people,
both of them, as the story goes. At Bethlehem
they lodged in a stable; for there were many persons
in the town, and the tavern was full. Then and
there a little boy was born, the son of this Joseph
and Mary; they named him JEHOSHUA, a common Hebrew
name, which we commonly call Joshua; but, in his case,
we pronounce it Jesus. They laid him in the
crib of the cattle, which was his first cradle.
That was the first Christmas, kept thus in a barn,
1856 years ago. Nobody knows the day or the month;
nay, the year itself is not certain.

After a while the parents went home to Nazareth, where
they had other sons,—­James, Joses,
Simon, and Judas,—­and daughters
also; nobody knows how many. There the boy Jesus
grew up, and it seems followed the calling of his
father; it is said, in special, that he made yokes,
ploughs, and other farm-tools. Little is known
about his early life and means of education.
His outside advantages were, no doubt, small and poor;
but he learned to read and write, and it seems became
familiar with the chief religious books of his nation,
which are still preserved in the Old Testament.

At that time there were three languages used in Judea,
beside the Latin, which was confined to a few officials:
1. The Syro-Chaldaic,—­the language
of business and daily life, the spoken language of
the common people. 2. The Greek,—­the
language of the courts of justice and official documents;
the spoken and written language of the foreign traders,
the aristocracy, and most of the more cultivated people
in the great towns. 3. The old Hebrew,—­the
written and spoken language of the learned, of theological
schools, of the priests; the language of the Old Testament.
It seems Jesus understood all three.

At that time the thinking people had outgrown the
old forms of religion, inherited from their fathers,
just as a little girl becomes too stout and tall for
the clothes which once fitted her babyhood; or as the
people of New England have now become too rich and
refined to live in the rough log-cabins, and to wear
the coarse, uncomfortable clothes, which were the
best that could be got two hundred years ago.
For mankind continually grows wiser and better,—­and